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dwmckim
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The E&B claymation is actually very understandable once you know the history behind them. They were originally produced to be a stand-alone show to be aired in other countries (ones with childrens programming blocks of a bunch of short under 30 minute pieces - which these days are a rarity in the US). Sesame fans complained that we wouldn't see them in the US. Sesame (originally not planning to do so when they were in production) eventually reversed themselves as aired them as part of Sesame Street in season 39...and then dealt with everyone complaining and afraid that clay E&B were going to replace real E&B.
Sesame Workshop often has to contemplate the big global picture when they create stuff - not only the American Sesame but the various international versions of Sesame have become institutions in their own respective countries. Most of them air stuff that were originally made for American Sesame...and more and more since Elmo's World and the breaking of the show down into different segments, there's always the tempation to create more segments that can both work within American Sesame and be stand-alone shows elsewhere. Elmo's World was the beginning of this as indeed these are shown elsewhere as its own stand-alone show. Global Grover became another segment that became its own entity elsewhere - Ernie and Bert's Great Adventures - the claymation Twiddlebugs were also created with the same idea (though i don't know at the moment if they actually followed through making this an international "show" or just ended up with a handful of segments for Sesame Street. I've not heard anything about these being broadcast anywhere as its own show (really because it is a bit narrow to an English-as-first-language being taught Spanish as a second language) but at it's regular timing of 6 min, 20 seconds, Murray Has a Little Lamb seems tailor-made to be an independant series.
I would think (hope?) that Sesame realizes that EW was a bit too much in terms of a segment in terms of time (15-20 minutes...originally done that way because research showed that around the 40-45 minute mark is when the younger children started to get restless watching) and would never attempt something like that again and that a new Abby (or any new segmants) would be more like 4-6 minutes.
Sesame Workshop often has to contemplate the big global picture when they create stuff - not only the American Sesame but the various international versions of Sesame have become institutions in their own respective countries. Most of them air stuff that were originally made for American Sesame...and more and more since Elmo's World and the breaking of the show down into different segments, there's always the tempation to create more segments that can both work within American Sesame and be stand-alone shows elsewhere. Elmo's World was the beginning of this as indeed these are shown elsewhere as its own stand-alone show. Global Grover became another segment that became its own entity elsewhere - Ernie and Bert's Great Adventures - the claymation Twiddlebugs were also created with the same idea (though i don't know at the moment if they actually followed through making this an international "show" or just ended up with a handful of segments for Sesame Street. I've not heard anything about these being broadcast anywhere as its own show (really because it is a bit narrow to an English-as-first-language being taught Spanish as a second language) but at it's regular timing of 6 min, 20 seconds, Murray Has a Little Lamb seems tailor-made to be an independant series.
I would think (hope?) that Sesame realizes that EW was a bit too much in terms of a segment in terms of time (15-20 minutes...originally done that way because research showed that around the 40-45 minute mark is when the younger children started to get restless watching) and would never attempt something like that again and that a new Abby (or any new segmants) would be more like 4-6 minutes.
. My being depressed over him being overlooked isn't just because I grew up with him 
but becuase I think he still has so much more to teach than Elmo or Abby ever could at their level, or age (maybe Abby could teach words but she'd have to mellow a bit more than she is now IMHO). I think back when BB was in his prime he did a great job at teaching things that were far far above the simple-let's-sing-a-word-to-the-turn-of-jingle-bells level...
